1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bread maker for automatically making baked bread and a method of controlling the bread maker.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, making bread is so complicated that it is difficult for average persons to make good bread at home by hand. This is because the process of making bread includes multiple steps of mixing ingredients such as flour, sugar, yeast, etc., to form a dough; kneading the dough; leavening the dough; baking the dough; and so on.
Therefore, various bread makers have been developed to allow a user to easily make bread by automatically performing the foregoing multiple steps to provide finished bread to the user.
For example, a bread maker disclosed in Korean Patent Publication No.1991-10203 includes a pair of parallel kneading drums at upper and lower parts of an oven compartment that reverse rotary direction periodically, a baking tray between the pair of kneading drums, a heater to heat the inside of the oven compartment, a bar code scanner, etc.
In the bread maker according to Korean Patent Publication No. 1991-10203, upper and lower ends of a mixing bag filled with flour, water, etc., are attached to the upper and lower kneading drums, and then the mixing bag is reciprocated up and down for a predetermined period of time, thereby kneading the dough in the mixing bag.
After completing the kneading of the dough, the mixing bag is automatically separated from the upper kneading drum, and is completely wound on the lower kneading drum, with the dough being squeezed out of the mixing bag into the baking tray. Thereafter, the heater heats the inside of the oven compartment, thereby leavening and baking the dough for a predetermined period of time.
The process of making the bread depends on reading a bar code that is printed on the mixing bag. The bar code contains information on kneading time, leavening time, baking time, etc., according to a specific recipe. The bar code is read by a bar code scanner and the read data are transmitted to a controller that controls the kneading drums, the heater, etc., on the basis of the read data.
However, in the conventional bread maker, it is difficult to remove the empty mixing bag that has been completely wound on the lower kneading drum after kneading the dough (see FIG. 8) because the lower kneading drum must be rotated many times to unwind and remove the mixing bag from the bread maker. Also, it is difficult to remove the empty mixing bag that has been completely wound on the lower kneading drum after baking the dough because a residue left in the mixing bag also rises, making the mixing bag tightly wound on the lower kneading drum.